Tour Schools

The last few weeks has seen the holding of tour schools on both the European and American tours. By all accounts these are the worst tournaments of the year because of the various stages involved culminating in a 6 round final stage with a cut after 4 rounds. Not only is this an endurance test of fitness and golf ability but it is a test of the mind as being able to keep concentration for 6 rounds when under so much pressure would be no mean feat. On this note I have discussed getting ahead of yourself in a round of golf with a few of my playing partners recently and we all know it is a dangerous thing to do but we still all do it. To put this into tour school perspective a good first round in the final stage might lead to you getting over excited and thinking you have almost done enough to secure your card or more realistically being well inside the top 30 players at the start of the final round and thinking that all you need to do is protect your position can be suicidal and result in you missing your card.

At tour schools there is always good and bad stories. A story that has caught my eye this year is that of Andrew Coltart. For those of you who don't know of or haven't heard of him I will remind you that he played in the 1999 Ryder Cup as a Captain's pick having finished just outside the automatic qualifying. For the last few years Coltart has been most noticable in the golf scene doing some commentating while trying to play some challenge tour events. However, he won his card at the european tour school this year so hopefully we will see him out there having some good finishes in 2009 and his experience can help him succeed and reach his potential.

Good luck to all those who earned their tour cards for 2009 and all those who just missed out. Practice hard.

Keep swinging